You by Caroline Kepnes

My edition: Library book
Pages:424
Series: You #1
Genre: Thriller
Rating: 5 gazillion stars

Synopsis:

When a beautiful, aspiring writer strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe Goldberg works, he does what anyone would do: he googles the name on her credit card.

There is only one Guinevere Beck in New York City. She has a public Facebook account and Tweets incessantly, telling Joe everything he needs to know: she is simply Beck to her friends, she went to Brown University, she lives on Bank Street, and she’ll be at a bar in Brooklyn tonight- the perfect place for a “chance” meeting.

As Joe invisibly and obsessively takes control of Beck’s life, he orchestrates a series of events to ensure Beck finds herself in his waiting arms. Moving from stalker to boyfriend, Joe transforms himself into Beck’s perfect man, all while quietly removing the obstacles that stand in their way-even if it means murder.

Review:

Not going to lie I did think that Joe was going to do worse than what actually happened. Granted this isn’t for everyone. There are dark moments in the book, but I feel as if it wasn’t as dark as I saw several people make it out to be.

Or maybe I’m just heartless. More than likely it is me being heartless. Or maybe it’s the fact that I’ve read gorier stories of obsession.

Now Joe is the perfect stalker. I simply adored him while at the same time not wanting this to happen to me. The book is told through Joe’s P.O.V. and if you are anything like me you will also think that Beck isn’t good enough for our dear hero, well antihero. I’m not putting Joe on my boyfriend list, but I can see why so many people fell in love with him. Even when he is doing bad.

To be truthfully honest I rooted for some of the bad stuff to happen. *Cough, Cough* Peach *Cough,Cough*

The author told a wonderful story. She truly creates some of the most horrendous characters that I have read about but I didn’t want to put the book down. Why? Because of Joe. I needed to see how he played out. His character was just so amazingly written.

It was like watching a friend who is in a toxic relationship loose all the life they once had before this person walked into their life. You want to help but you can’t because they don’t want help.

Let’s get this cleared up first, though Joe is a stalker and Beck is his object of obsession, I don’t see Beck as a victim. I couldn’t help but think after I seen it in another review but she reminds me much of Daisy at times from The Great Gatsby. Not all the time though. Daisy had a little, okay a lot more class than Beck.

The author spins such a tale with Joe and Beck that you feel more sympathy for Joe than for Beck. You wish that he could do better such as Karen Minty but instead he let’s his desire for Beck rule him.

This wasn’t the normal dark stalker I have grown to know. This was different from the men who fall in love with a woman or even a woman falling in love with a man and go full psycho. Fatal Attraction anyone? Joe doesn’t beat around the bush with Beck. He knows she has flaws such as tweeting to much than actually writing stories. He catches her in multiple lies but still forgives her. There are no rainbow unicorn googles with Joe. He sees Beck for who she is and still is completely obsessed with her.

Don’t get me wrong Joe has many flaws. I mean hello he is stalking a woman who happened to just walk into his bookstore. But I can’t help but feel sorry for Joe because Beck is such a horrible person. But both of them are terrible material when it comes to relationship quality.

I can’t wait to get Hidden Bodies next. Hope my library gets it in soon.